A 37-year-old North Berkeley resident died Sunday, just shy of two weeks after a motorist struck her while she was jogging at Marin Avenue and Oxford Street, according to police and other city officials.
Several public officials named her as Julia Elkin, a longtime environmental conservation worker who most recently worked for the Sonoma Land Trust. The City Council held a ceremonial adjournment in her memory Tuesday.
Neighbors said the intersection direly needs traffic-calming measures and other improvements.
Berkeley Unified School District Board of Education President Ana Vasudeo, who lives near the intersection, said she rushed out after Elkin was hit and called first responders along with other neighbors.
“Many of us heard the terrible crash when Julia Elkin was hit by a driver as she was in a crosswalk on the corner of Marin and Oxford. The driver was traveling westbound down the hill on Marin,” Vasudeo said Tuesday.
“We are devastated to hear today that Julia passed away from her injuries,” Vasudeo said. “I’m here to implore you to address the urgent need for traffic calming on Marin Avenue and Oxford, and intersection improvements on the corner of Marin and Oxford.”
City police said they first went to Marin and Oxford around 1:30 p.m. for a report of a car striking a pedestrian. The driver was heading westbound, down the hill on Marin Avenue, stopped at the stop sign at the intersection with Oxford, “proceeded through the intersection, and struck the pedestrian on the west side of the intersection,” Berkeley police spokesperson Officer Jessica Perry said in an email.
“Many of us heard her scream before she was hit and rushed to the scene to support her and call for help,” Vasudeo said Tuesday. “Julia’s death was a tragedy that was preventable.”
The intersection has traffic moving in all four directions, with stop signs on both sides of Oxford and the downhill side of Marin. A striped pedestrian crosswalk is on the western side of the intersection, across Marin from the stop sign, with a yellow pedestrian crossing sign pointing at it.
That section of Marin is a “high injury street,” or one of the streets within Berkeley with the most severe injuries and fatalities based on data from 2008-2018, according to the city’s Vision Zero Action Plan.
Elkin suffered “significant injuries” at the scene and was taken to a hospital, police said. “On Sunday, Feb. 25, the victim, a female in her 30s, sadly passed away,” Perry wrote.
Elkin’s family posted on Facebook that, as an organ and tissue donor, she would, in death, save the lives of six recipients.
The department’s Fatal Accident Investigation Team is still investigating, and police have not yet determined a primary cause for the collision.
